[jtfanclub]

jdonn, on Mar 24 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

Plus it's obvious that people should be held to different standards when talking to a person in a position of authority over them than when talking to a random person..

My point was, I am aware that the phrase could be considered offensive.

If I heard the phrase in a pickup game in a basketball court, I wouldn't think twice about it. If I heard a coworker use the phrase in a meeting with customers of both genders, I would probably point out to him afterwards that some people would take offense. The forums should be between the two, but where I don't know.

It would be nice if people here were civil enough that if somebody complained to a poster about an offensive phrase the person complained to would make a change (or have a mod make the change) without worrying about if the person in question was irrational or unthinking.

I think it's funny that of the two threads going in the Water Cooler, one is about whether a mildly vulgar phrase is appropriate while the other compares bridge professionals to whores, albeit humorously.

[luke warm]

as much as it pains me to say so, i agree with richard on this... pretty much his whole post... sigh

[jillybean]

I thought vulgar and sexist were synonymous since many vulgarities have sexist overtones. I do not see the importance in distinguishing between vulgar and sexist, both are equally unsuitable in an open forum.

Josh, it bothered you when I said that I am certainly not beyond using expletives. At times I cuss under my breath or heaven help me even out loud. I talk to a girlfriend using expressions I would never use in public and say things to my husband I would not dream of using at the family dinner table. Most things have a place however I don’t think BBO forums is such a place.

It is interesting to note that 16 of the 19 replies are from male forum members who in general support the use of such language. If majority rules the outcome of this is clear and the main forum would be better-titled

‘Mens locker room – women with balls welcome’

[TimG]

jillybean2, on Mar 24 2008, 09:43 AM, said:

I thought vulgar and sexist were synonymous since many vulgarities have sexist overtones.

I meant vulgar in the sense of offensive in language. I believe something can be vulgar without being sexist or sexist without being vulgar.

If I say "Oh *****!" that language may be considered offensive to some. But, you'll have a hard time convincing me that it is in any way sexist. Likewise, if I say "you bid like a girl" there is no offensive language involved, yet the statement is sexist.

[blackshoe]

1. Somewhat OT: AFAIK (I haven't read the whole thing), the Kama Sutra does not discuss sex involving animals.

2. Some people, it seems to me, are professional offense-takers. They will take offense at the slightest hint of something irregular.

3. As someone who has (off and on) run bulletin board systems and on line forums for nearly thirty years, it is my opinion that it is best that a moderator not edit peoples' posts. They either stand, with perhaps a (public, private or both) suggestion that they aren't appropriate, or they get deleted (with a private message to the poster explaining why they were deleted). What to allow and not to allow is up to the moderator/site owner/whatever, but should be published so everyone knows the rules.

4. Jerry Pournelle, on his forum on GEnie (and later on Delphi and Bix) used to say that use of "f*ck" and "s*it" and similar obfuscations is silly - everyone knows what you mean, go ahead and say it. Of course, if you said it in the context of a personal attack against another forum member he, or his staff, would be all over you. Personally, I agree with that approach.

5. I spent 20 years in the military. I doubt there is an obscenity or profanity I haven't heard. They don't bother me, per se. However, I do recognize that they bother some people, and that it is considered impolite in our society to use them in public, so generally I try not to use them in public unless I'm really trying to make a point. I think that's where Jilly is coming from, btw.

[cherdano]

Jilly, I don't think the right way to deal with phrases that some might (reasonably) find sexist is to censor them. We should not put our moderators in the position where we expect them to deal with everything that "we" (which will always just be some of us) find unacceptable.

[kenberg]

“How big are your tits/ surely you couldn’t have seen your cards” I guess is suggesting that the only explanation for a play is that the person's tits were so large that their view of the hand was obscured. So how much worse is this than "Did you choose your play randomly? Only a moron would choose it intentionally."

What I am getting at is that however you feel about the precise wording, the person is rude. Probably he also thinks himself to be wonderfully witty, but his basic action is rude whether he chooses the first phrasing or the second. Teaching him to not say tits won't really improve matters that much. If my partner calls me an idiot we are already done, regardless of his comments about my balls. Although I might ask him why he has such an interest in knowing the size of my balls.

Uday, if this doesn't embarrass him, seems to me to be an anomaly among people who have a role in censorship in that he prefers not to censor but sometimes reluctantly does so. There are many problems with censorship but certainly one of them is that the typical censor is both eager and stupid. I don't really have a problem with a moderator saying "Hey look folks, it's a bridge forum, so please go a little easy on the T&A stuff".

[luke warm]

blackshoe, on Mar 24 2008, 09:56 AM, said:

2. Some people, it seems to me, are professional offense-takers. They will take offense at the slightest hint of something irregular.

hence the new group i recently joined, POOP

People Offended by Offended People

[jdonn]

TimG, on Mar 24 2008, 08:39 AM, said:

jdonn, on Mar 24 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

Literally yes, but of course no one would have ever even thought to take the expression literally in the context it was used. Figuratively I think it clearly means how brave are you, not how masculine are you. The urban-dictionary website confirms this, mentioning both meanings but the brave one far more prominently than the masculine one, which is hardly mentioned at all.

Either way, figuratively or literally, brave or masculine, there is a sexist implication.

Would you think it should be removed if I just typed "men are braver than women"? That alone would be ridiculous. Now what if I typed something else that implies that but that was clearly not what I meant, should that be removed? It is beyond ridiculous.

I didn't mean to get involved even this deeply since honestly I also don't care that much. If stuff like that gets censored I will just say to myself 'this is dumb' and move on with life. But that just goes to my point that I don't understand why someone would waste precious minutes of their ever-shortening life worrying about something like this.

I also commend Uday for bothering to care what we all think.

[TimG]

jdonn, on Mar 24 2008, 02:13 PM, said:

TimG, on Mar 24 2008, 08:39 AM, said:

jdonn, on Mar 24 2008, 02:01 AM, said:

Literally yes, but of course no one would have ever even thought to take the expression literally in the context it was used. Figuratively I think it clearly means how brave are you, not how masculine are you. The urban-dictionary website confirms this, mentioning both meanings but the brave one far more prominently than the masculine one, which is hardly mentioned at all.

Either way, figuratively or literally, brave or masculine, there is a sexist implication.

Would you think it should be removed if I just typed "men are braver than women"? That alone would be ridiculous. Now what if I typed something else that implies that but that was clearly not what I meant, should that be removed? It is beyond ridiculous.

I don't think I have offered any opinion about whether the original subject line should have been changed.

I don't think intent is the only criteria. For that, see my reference to the use of "gay" or "ghay".

I do agree it can be taken to absurd extremes. I live in Maine where "squaw" has recently been removed from all place names. Turns out that, to the natives, "squaw" is the rough equivalent of "whore". That's not what it meant to those who named the places decades or centuries ago. Nor, I suspect, did a vast majority of those who told their friends they had skied at Big Squaw Mountain know what a member of the Penobscot Nation might have thought had they overheard. But, well, "squaw" has disappeared from all signs and maps.

[barmar]

TimG, on Mar 24 2008, 09:39 AM, said:

Either way, figuratively or literally, brave or masculine, there is a sexist implication. The fact that it has become so common to have dulled our perception of it, should not matter.

Actually, it should. How many people think about the connotation of saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes? I can't be the only atheist who says it, totally ignoring the literal meaning.

This is how language evolves. Words and phrases get adopted into new contexts. The idiom is based on metaphor, but once the new use becomes widespread the original connotation fades away.

"Balls" is still a recent enough convert that we can have this debate about it. We can also have a discussion about whether "gay" means "homosexual" or "stupid". Yet the previous meaning "happy" has been totally usurped already; any writing using this sense would be considered archaic, and no one would even think of trying to use it in a contemporary setting.

BTW, I think a female executive would consider it a compliment to be told that she "has balls". She's in a traditionally male-dominated profession, and this would be a mark that she's accepted into that community. Feminists might not like the fact that the idiom for this is based on a male-centered world, but it's a simple, historical fact.

[TimG]

Jlall, on Mar 24 2008, 04:41 PM, said:

kenberg, on Mar 24 2008, 06:56 AM, said:

I was thinking maybe his next growth spurt would be to stop discussing stupid fucking ***** with young women he was trying to impress.

WOW, and I thought the moral of your story was going to be "I realized how the language has changed and evolved, and how things that were taboo 100 years ago when I was a kid no longer have the same meaning/impact."

I thought the moral of the story was that if he wanted to impress her, he should have tried articulating his thoughts in a better way than "stupid fucking *****" over and over again.

[TimG]

barmar, on Mar 24 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

TimG, on Mar 24 2008, 09:39 AM, said:

Either way, figuratively or literally, brave or masculine, there is a sexist implication.  The fact that it has become so common to have dulled our perception of it, should not matter.

Actually, it should. How many people think about the connotation of saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes? I can't be the only atheist who says it, totally ignoring the literal meaning.

This is how language evolves. Words and phrases get adopted into new contexts. The idiom is based on metaphor, but once the new use becomes widespread the original connotation fades away.

So, it's OK to offend over and over again because the offensive nature will eventually be forgotten or overlooked?

[helene_t]

TimG, on Mar 24 2008, 10:50 PM, said:

So, it's OK to offend over and over again because the offensive nature will eventually be forgotten or overlooked?

No but if it is obvious to anyone that the intend was not offensive then it's pretty silly to complain about the fact that the word would have been offensive if used by a member of another culture.

Reminds me of a story about the queen of UK visiting Denmark and the hosts removed the lift LCD displays saying "I fart" (which means "occupied") to not offend the guest.

Edit: Justin's post above is better than this one.

[Al_U_Card]

luke warm, on Mar 24 2008, 01:50 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Mar 24 2008, 09:56 AM, said:

2. Some people, it seems to me, are professional offense-takers. They will take offense at the slightest hint of something irregular.

hence the new group i recently joined, POOP

People Offended by Offended People

I joined

Friends Uttering Completely Knowledgeable Opinions For Free....

Do I have to spell it out for you?

(but i do appreciate the palindromic aspect of yours too )

[FrancesHinden]

barmar, on Mar 24 2008, 10:22 PM, said:

BTW, I think a female executive would consider it a compliment to be told that she "has balls". She's in a traditionally male-dominated profession, and this would be a mark that she's accepted into that community. Feminists might not like the fact that the idiom for this is based on a male-centered world, but it's a simple, historical fact.

I would not. I would consider it insulting.

[irdoz]

I belong to A.W.A.R.E (acronym without a reasonable excuse) and we are aware of this thread.